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--- Part 3 of a gameplay walkthrough of Unknown 9: Awakening.

--- I will be finishing the entire game, leaving you to decide if it's worth it or not.

DISCLAIMER: I got this game for FREE with my recent CPU purchase!

--- Check out My Journey video for my specs if you're interested in knowing:

[ Ссылка ]

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Unknown 9: Awakening released October 17, 2024.

--- It is available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X & Series S, and Microsoft Windows.

--- This game got about a 6/10 rating from nearly all acclaimed critics (including Steam).

--- Steam has Mixed Reviews on it as of October 23, 2024.

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Game Summary:

"You are Haroona, a Quaestor born with the ability to venture into a mysterious dimension: the Fold. On her quest for powerful hidden knowledge, she must learn to master the powers of the Fold to fight a secret society with a hostile agenda."

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My First Impression Review for Pt. 3:

CONS:

- In-game dialogue constantly gets interrupted by cutscenes or cut off by/mixed with other in-game dialogue (such as the Tuning), throwing the immersion of gameplay off by a significant amount.

- Meeting Azad immediately after he was mentioned seems a bit rushed with no build up, but not a super big deal.

- Map of Haroona's homeland feels a bit too "mazey" when roaming and has a lot of roundabouts for really no reason: no scenic value, no side objectives, no interactive mini-games or activity at all. Even all the collector's items are in obvious rooms or semi-obvious locations (such as ceiling corners at edge of map).

- Button icons being displayed for actions can become a habit from activating doors, pickups, and other various enables, which makes it somewhat easy to accidentally trigger explosions or fires on yourself as they have the same activation cue.

- Constant reminder of disappointment in the skilltree each time I gather some skill points. There are only a few options technically, but in reality, you don't even need some of them at all to play, which renders the tree concept unnecessary. They should have just made it an actual *linear* level-up skilltree instead of branching it out as pseudo-options.

- Consecutive undefeatable second boss fight, this time against Vincent, makes you feel helpless and completely dissipates the sense of heroism which makes story games fun in the first place. The manner in which it's done seems very deliberate and tasteless, even being mocked by the boss in dialogue, which made me honestly smirk a bit but still gives a negative impact overall.

- Turret gun mini-quest feels boring and out of place following the unfortunate boss fight after taking out 1 or 2 planes. Feels like a cheap and faulty way to try and distract you from the frustrating defeat you just experienced.



PROS:

- The overall story itself is still decent, especially pertaining to the change in environments (from the desert to the small town to the jungle to the blimp to the village and so on).

- Abilities are still very appealing to me and seem to get better, although some are useless or tedious to use, such as the Ripple (which, to be fair, can be used more often if you like having more fun with stealth).

- Enemies don't feel as rough with the new AOE attacks and stronger abilities (however they do still feel a bit overwhelming at times).

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Conclusion for Pt. 3:

The story itself keeps you kind of interested in the game - the new characters are pretty cool so far - but then once you get into the gameplay, you gradually lose interest from all the dialogue interference, bugs and glitches, rough opponents, and *especially* the consecutive boss fight defeat. The mini quests such as transponder locating and turret gun don't make up for these losses at all. If it weren't for the abilities and stealth in this game, there would be nothing left. Nothing to judge or contest. I guess the collector's items do give you a speckle of a dopamine boost, but there's nothing solid about this game still, aside from the abilities, which I keep reiterating...to even mention this as a part of the best aspects of the game is pitiful, I know.


After losing to two different bosses in a row, I hope there's progress in Part 4...
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